Managing Stormwater System Upgrades to Reduce Risk and Cost Using Innovative SUE Technologies

One aspect of the impacts of climate change that is constantly in the news is flooding, whether it be coastal or inland. The traditional way of moving storm or surge water is through large pipes, mostly under our developed areas like streets and parking lots. Increasing pipe capacity to move more water involves two solutions: more pipes, or larger pipes, or a combination thereof. Existing underground space is already burdened with millions of miles of other public and private utilities. One unique consideration of stormwater management is that gravity rather than pressurized pipes moves this water. Fitting new volume capacity constrained by elevation is going to be costly in terms of time and money. History documents that knowing the precise location and nature of all these other utilities—known and unknown, abandoned and active, repurposed or forgotten—is a prudent first step. Additionally, there are other buried items for which information may not be available until construction: thrust blocks, construction rubble, tanks, vaults, etc. Yet society’s records of what is under the ground are poor. Several new technologies, combined with traditional subsurface utility engineering investigation and documentation techniques, are the prudent engineering solution to characterizing the existing underground to eliminate costly construction surprises.